CFR experts give their take on the cutting-edge issues emerging in Asia today.

Posts by Category

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi speaks during the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok. (Chaiwat Subprasom/Courtesy Reuters)

In a speech today at the World Economic Forum, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi warned potential investors to the country, which is opening up to business, that the country faced a severe unemployment crises, utterly useless legal protections for investors, severe political problems, and weak infrastructure. Read more »

British prime minister David Cameron walks beside British Ambassador to Indonesia Mark Canning upon his arrival in Jakarta, April 11, 2012. (Beawiharta/Courtesy Reuters)

Press reports today and yesterday confirm that British prime minister David Cameron will visit Myanmar on Friday, as part of a tour through Asia. This will make Cameron the first major Western leader to visit Myanmar in at least two decades, since the 1990 elections, whose results were never recognized internationally. Cameron is supposedly bringing with him a business delegation, as companies are now rushing to get into Myanmar.

In some ways, the United Kingdom is well positioned to be the European country that breaks the ice, leading the end of the European sanctions. Read more »

Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi waves toward her supporters after finishing her address during the election campaign at Mon State in Myanmar. (Courtesy Reuters)

As the jubilation continues among Burmese democrats, some realities are starting to sink in. The victory in the by-elections, though enormous, will still only give the National League for Democracy (NLD) a small percentage of seats in parliament. The party will still have to contend with dominance by the military’s favored party, and rely on the fragile health of President Thein Sein to help keep the reforms going. In a new piece for The New Republic, I analyze the election aftermath. You can read the piece here. Read more »

A man shows a phone with a picture of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as election results are revealed on the screen in front of the head office of the National League for Democracy in Yangon April 1, 2012. Myanmar voted on Sunday in its third election in half a century. (Damir Sagolj/Courtesy Reuters)

On Sunday Myanmar time, Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) swept to victory in a landslide in the by-elections for parliamentary seats. Suu Kyi herself won a parliamentary seat, and the party appears to have taken the majority of seats contested overall, leading to jubilation at party headquarters. The victory will likely be viewed by some members of the international community as a sign that Myanmar’s reform process in fully entrenched, and that foreign countries should abandon sanctions and completely normalize relations with Myanmar. Read more »

A supporter holds up a portrait of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi during an election campaign of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party in Yangon March 28, 2012. (Courtesy Reuters)

Over on New Mandala, Nicholas Farrelly makes some important points about Aung San Suu Kyi’s campaign for a parliamentary seat in the April 1 Burmese by-elections. Most notably, he writes that “it is much more dangerous for President Thein Sein if Aung San Suu Kyi fails to win her seat.” Indeed, I think this point has been poorly understood and underestimated. All of the harassment, intimidation, and other methods to keep the National League for Democracy (NLD) from campaigning as effectively as they should will actually be counterproductive to the president if Suu Kyi loses or if the NLD loses most of the seats. Read more »

A man sits in his home as pictures of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her father General Aung San hang on the wall in Phwartheinkha village. (Soe Zeya Tun/Courtesy Reuters)

The upcoming by-elections in Myanmar will be closely watched, both by people inside the country and by the international community. The United States and many other nations that have sanctions on Myanmar are viewing the by-elections as a critical test of whether the reforms put into place over the past year and a half have legs, and whether the government is truly willing to allow the National League for Democracy (NLD) to play a major role, since it is likely that Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD candidates are going to win a sizable majority, if not almost all, of the contested by-election seats. Read more »

In today’s New York Times, Thomas Fuller has an excellent piece exploring the challenges faced by Aung San Suu Kyi as she attempts to make the transformation from longtime (and jailed) icon to politician. Fuller mentions that, since she is now a working politician, Suu Kyi has to offer solutions to the country’s problems, rather than just leading the dissent — and those problems are enormous. But he does not mention in detail the fact that, among some Burmese Democrats, there is concern that simply by working closely with the government, Suu Kyi is hurting her own image, since it still remains unclear where the reform path is headed. Read more »

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi talks during a news conference after her meeting with U.N. Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana at her home in Yangon February 3, 2012. (Soe Zeya Tun/Courtesy Reuters)

For two decades spent mostly under house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi was the icon of the Burmese democracy movement, and one of the most famous figures in the world. Jailed in her house, and with the regime totally in control, she had little chance to even engage in politics, and as an icon she remained almost completely above criticism. It was rare that any Burmese democracy advocates, inside or outside of the country, would voice even the mildest criticism of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Read more »

Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi shakes hands with people outside the National League for Democracy (NLD) head office after a meeting in Yangon November 18, 2011 (Soe Zeya Tun/Courtesy Reuters).

With the announcement that Secretary of State Clinton will be traveling to Burma in early December, the first visit by such a high-level U.S. official in five decades, U.S.-Burma relations are actually moving so rapidly that it is hard to keep up with the change — something I never thought I would find myself writing about Burma. But in anticipation of the visit, it’s important to critically examine how to proceed from here. The government of new president Thein Sein already has presided over more opening than any Burmese government in at least two decades, but the administration should be watching these key markers to see that reform is continuing to progress: Read more »

U.S. President Barack Obama announces that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Myanmar, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Bali (Jason Reed/Courtesy Reuters).

In what is surely the biggest news in U.S.-Myanmar relations in fifty years, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that she will be traveling to Myanmar next month. On the same day, Aung San Suu Kyi announced she will be re-entering politics, setting the stage for her and her party, the National League for Democracy, to contest the next elections, which are believed to be coming in 2015. As the New York Times reported, “The twin events underscored the remarkable and sudden pace of change in Myanmar, which has stunned observers inside and outside the country.”

Clinton’s trip, though it caps off a year of serious reforms in Myanmar, is still something of a gamble. The new president, Thein Sein, does indeed seem to be a reformer, and possibly Myanmar’s de Klerk or Gorbachev. He has presided over an opening of the media environment, privatization of many companies, a relaxation on political parties, a new dialogue with Suu Kyi, the freeing of significant numbers of Burma’s thousands of political prisoners,and a push to convince exiles who have fled the country to return. Still, many doubts remain about how much power Thein Sein himself wields, and whether the generals who formally retired after the elections last November will allow reform to continue.

In a piece last week for The New Republic, I outlined these challenges.

About This Blog

Asia Unbound examines political, economic, and social developments in Asia and the region’s growing importance in global affairs. Named one of the top fifty blogs following Asian business by Bschool.com.